A foundation sponsored by top U.S. business executives has selected five project teams investigating neutrino oscillation, including one led by Nobel physics laureate Takaaki Kajita, as winners of its Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.
Three of the five teams are led by Japanese researchers.
Kajita's team is co-led by Yoichiro Suzuki of the University of Tokyo's Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe.
The other Japanese team leaders are Atsuto Suzuki of Iwate Prefectural University and Koichiro Nishikawa of the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization.
The $3 million prize will be shared equally by the five teams, which include one from China and another from Canada, according to the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation.
The foundation awards two other physics prizes: the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and the New Horizons in Physics Prize. It also rewards in mathematics and the life sciences.
The foundation was launched by founders of such companies as Facebook Inc. and Google Inc.